Judge rejects Trump 'fishing expedition' to subpoena Jan. 6 materials

The former president has branded Smith's prosecution a political witch hunt and part of a broader effort to derail his 2024 bid for the White House.

By Ben Whedon

Published: November 27, 2023 5:42pm

Judge Tanya Chutkan on Monday rejected efforts from former President Donald Trump's legal team to subpoena materials about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot as part of special counsel Jack Smith's ongoing prosecution of the ex-commander-in-chief over his efforts to challenge the 2020 election results.

The Trump team had alleged that the now-defunct House Jan. 6 Committee had failed to hand over all of the evidence related to the matter, The Hill reported. Chutkan rejected the request as a "fishing expedition."

"The broad scope of the records that Defendant seeks, and his vague description of their potential relevance, resemble less 'a good faith effort to obtain identified evidence' than they do ‘a general 'fishing expedition' that attempts to use the [Rule 17(c) subpoena] as a discovery device," she wrote.

The Jan. 6 Committee was a Democrat-led panel that included two Republicans, former Reps. Liz Cheney, Wyo., and Adam Kinzinger, Ill., both of whom voted to impeach Trump. Republicans largely derided its efforts as a partisan sham. At issue were video recordings from committee activities that didn't make it into the panel's public hearings.

Ex-panel chair Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., in August said "[t]he Select Committee did not archive temporary committee records that were not elevated by the Committee’s actions, such as use in hearings or official publications, or those that did not further its investigative activities... the Select Committee was not obligated to archive all video recordings of transcribed interviews or depositions."

Trump, in that same month, pleaded not guilty to four counts, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, threatening constitutional rights, conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, and obstruction of an official proceeding.

The former president has branded Smith's prosecution a political witch hunt and part of a broader effort to derail his 2024 bid for the White House. He is currently appealing a gag order Chutkan imposed limiting his ability to talk about the case and relevant figures involved in it.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.